


Expeditionary Storms

by deadgranger



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Community: FFT, Community: HPFT, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Science Fiction, takes place between s6 and s7 ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadgranger/pseuds/deadgranger
Summary: Raven Reyes and John Murphy are on an exploratory mission in the deep woods of Sanctum when a freak storm traps them in place for three days. Will they figure things out between them or continue their awkward existence alongside each other?*Written for dreamshadow's Trapped Together Challenge on HPFT*
Relationships: John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Expeditionary Storms

Murphy and Raven were exploring more of the woods far from Sanctum during a particularly humid, sunny day when they found a deep pond in the middle of a clearing nine days into their twenty day expedition. They immediately dropped their packs and knelt at the shore, drinking the cool, clear water and refilling their water flasks. Wiping his chin with the back of his hand, Murphy flicked his gaze to rest on Raven, waiting for her to finish drinking. She rose, sealing the cap on her flasks and turned to face Murphy. 

“Well, what do you think?” she asked. “We’ve got about two hours until sunset so we can keep exploring, but if you want to stop and make camp here tonight I’m good with that too.” 

“I say we keep going for an hour, and then if we don’t find anything more interesting after that, we turn around and camp somewhere near here for the night,” Murphy answered. 

Raven nodded her affirmation and lifted her pack up from the ground. Murphy mirrored her, shouldering his pack and leading the way back into the woods. He looked back to see if Raven was following him and gave her a small smile, which she returned. Murphy turned forward and settled into his scanning of the nearby trees as they continued on. 

They had fallen into a somewhat easy pattern on this trip, rotating who led the way, who cooked, and who took first watch overnight. Tonight would technically be Murphy’s turn to cook, as he let Raven do some experimenting with breakfast this morning after she found some edible berries to eat on her morning stretch of watch. Murphy’s thoughts about dinner easily distracted him from noticing the change in weather as they kept walking. 

Not even forty-five minutes had passed when the weather suddenly began to change on them; clouds covered the sun and a fierce wind whipped up. Murphy raised an arm to protect his face from flying leaves and twigs, turning around to face Raven, getting into her space so she could hear him. 

“We need to find shelter!” Murphy shouted over the roar of the wind. 

“I know! I think I saw something over this way earlier,” Raven yelled back, pointing off to the east. 

“Let’s go,” Murphy nodded, following behind Raven closely as the wind continued roaring in their ears. 

Raven trampled through some undergrowth towards a darkened structure looming between two trees, Murphy following close behind. She stumbled over a tree root with her bad leg, the joints of her leg brace screeching as she tried not to fall over. Murphy steadied her with a firm grip on her arm, and they pushed on. As they approached the structure, it began to take the shape of an abandoned outpost building from Eligius III’s original exploration mission that was still in remarkable shape. 

The wind gusted then, pushing both of them directly into the front door of the building. They hit the metal with a loud smack, the sound echoing inside the building and reverberating in their ears. 

“Can you open it?” Murphy asked, rubbing his elbow. 

“I’m sure as hell gonna try!” Raven answered as she pulled a screwdriver from a side pocket of her pack. She got to work on the lock with Murphy trying to block the wind for her. 

After just a minute of fiddling, it opened with a click and the two ran inside, slamming the door closed behind them and re-locking it. They leaned back against the door, breathing heavily in the semi-darkness. Murphy stood up straight first, setting his pack down on the floor to remove a flashlight. 

He clicked it on, shining it around the room they were in. There was a good layer of dust on everything, indicating no one had been there in decades. The light shone over the furniture in the room, which was just some empty shelves and a tiny table with two metal chairs. A closed door led to a second room, which Murphy opened cautiously after Raven had retrieved her flashlight as well. It creaked as it swung open, hitting the wall with a dull thud. They stepped through after seeing a less-dusty bedroom and living space awaited them. 

The wind howled outside, shaking the walls of the structure, but it held firm. 

“I wonder if the electricity still works in this place,” Raven said, searching for a light switch. 

Murphy found one first and flipped it to the ‘on’ position. The ceiling lights flickered ominously for thirty seconds before staying lit a dim orange. “Guess they do,” he said, smirking. 

Raven rolled her eyes and set her pack on the couch, sitting down next to it. She pulled out a handheld monitor that showed a map with Sanctum and their path so far on it. Tapping on a few things, she finally pulled up a meteorology overlay and zoomed in on their current location. Murphy leaned over her shoulder from behind to peer at the monitor, resting his hands on the back of the couch. As Raven continued typing, little boxes of information on the map overlays popped up. 

“Well, it looks like we just got hit with the front of a huge wind storm with a high chance of heavy rain later tonight through all of tomorrow that is going to take at least three days to calm down enough for us to have a chance of making it back to Sanctum’s furthest active outpost,” Raven sighed. 

“Damn,” Murphy said, his head dropping. “Why does this always happen to me?”

“We’ll be fine, Murphy. We’ve got more than enough rations to spend two days here and still get back to Sanctum without any problems. Come on, you’re the cockroach,” she cajoled him. 

He clicked his tongue in distaste. “Yeah, well, as long as your little smart map doesn’t lie and we can leave in three days I’ll be happy.”

She turned the monitor off and stowed it back in her pack. “Hey at least we aren’t sleeping in a tent for the next two days. Sleeping in real beds in Sanctum for the last six months has really made me forget how long we didn’t have that on Earth.” 

“Don’t make me remind you of the shit we had for beds up on the ring either, Reyes,” he teased back, relaxing a little. 

“Ugh, I think you mean the shit I had to hear, Murphy,” she replied, feigning vomiting. 

Murphy’s face darkened for a moment as he thought about his broken relationship with Emori, then shook it off and rose from where he had been leaning. “Well what do you say we have some dinner then, Reyes? Since it’s not like we have anywhere else to be right now and all.” 

“Works for me, though I think it’s going to have to be some of our uncooked rations, sorry,” she said. 

He shook a hand dismissively. “Food is food right now. We’re in the middle of a goddamn wind storm so I just want to eat and try to get some sleep tonight.” 

They went back into the front room and turned on the lights. These lights were a bit brighter, and Raven noticed a small kitchenette tucked into a corner that Murphy’s flashlight had missed earlier. 

“If the lights work, how much do you want to bet the stove works?” Raven asked. 

“Nothing, because if it didn’t I know you’d probably sit here all night getting it working again,” Murphy answered. 

Raven raised a hand and bowed her head in acknowledgement. ‘Touché, Murphy, touché. Let’s see if she does work, shall we?” 

She turned a knob on the front and let out a victory noise when the front right electric burner lit up red. Murphy just shook his head and chuckled, folding his arms across his chest. 

“Looks like we can have some cooked rations tonight instead of full cold ones,” she smiled, turning back to face him. 

At that statement, Murphy nodded his head and went to grab some of the to-be-cooked rations from his pack, along with their camp dishware. Raven dug around in the cupboards, found the least dusty pot, and dumped half of her spare water canteen into it to bring it to a boil. She accepted the ration packs from Murphy and mixed those in, turning the heat down and letting it simmer for twenty minutes. Soon enough, the smell had permeated throughout the whole outpost building, causing Murphy's stomach to rumble loudly. 

Raven gave the pot one last swirl, then turned the stove off. She scooped two servings into their bowls and set them down on the little metal table. “Soup’s up, Murphy!” she called to him in the other room. 

He strode in and sat down quickly at the table, hardly having put his butt to the seat before spooning some of the soup into his mouth. “Hot, hot, hot,” he spluttered, opening his mouth and trying to cool the soup down inside his mouth. 

“Classy,” Raven raised an eyebrow and blew on her spoonful for a few seconds before eating it. 

Murphy swallowed finally and took a big gulp of water. “What, you didn’t tell me it was going to be hot!” 

She tsked at him. “It’s soup, Murphy, why does this continue to be a surprise to you?” 

“Maybe because Monty’s algae on the ring was always a gross, cold soup situation.” 

Raven pointed her spoon at him and said, “Fair enough.”

They ate the rest of the soup in companionable silence, having gotten much more used to it and being alone with each other in the week since they’d started their trek. Once they were both done, Murphy automatically rinsed their bowls and the pot with a small amount of water and left them on the counter to dry out overnight. 

The wind chose then to make its presence known once more, slamming into the walls of the outpost and shaking the building fiercely. The front door protested against its locking mechanism, the wind fighting to find any crack it could get into. Raven quickly checked the lock to make sure it would hold through the night before retreating into the bedroom space. Murphy followed behind, sprawling on the bed, his hands resting underneath his head. 

Raven sat on the couch, methodically undoing the buckles on her leg brace. She slid out of it and set it on the couch next to her, stretching her leg and rubbing her lower thigh where the brace chafed a bit over her pants. Murphy watched her, his face neutral. When she made no move to get up from the couch, he sat up on the bed. 

“Don’t think you’re sleeping on that damn couch tonight, Reyes. This bed is big enough for the both of us,” he said loudly. 

She jumped a little at his volume compared to the wind. “I wasn’t going to, Murphy. I was actually going to kick you off the bed so I could have it, you ass,” she stuck her tongue out at him. 

He pretended to be hurt and clutched a hand to his chest over his heart. “Ouch, that one really stings.” 

Both of them laughed, breaking the tension and releasing some of the weird energy in the room. Looking out the window, Raven saw only pitch black, indicating that night was fully upon them. She sighed and stood, resting a hand on the couch in case her leg gave out suddenly. Walking over to the bed, she raised an eyebrow at Murphy until he scooted over to one side so she could sit down. 

As she sat and bent over to start unlacing her boots, Murphy mirrored her, also shrugging off his outer jacket and tossing it lazily to the floor. They both laid on their sides to face each other, a respectable distance between them on the bed. 

“It feels weird not to have a fire going right now,” Raven finally said. 

“Yeah, but at least we aren’t sleeping on rocky ground tonight,” Murphy replied. 

Raven chuckled, “That is a blessing, for sure. I doubt our poor tents would have lasted more than ten seconds in this wind.”

He laughed and shifted on the bed, closing the distance between the two of them a miniscule amount. She noticed his movement, her eyes flicking to his lips for a split second before refocusing on a spot on the wall past his shoulder. Noticing her changes in focus, Murphy started playing with a loose thread on the blanket, tugging at it with his fingers. The wind roared outside, the storm having intensified significantly since they found the outpost. 

As the walls shook more violently and the sounds of metal screws fighting against being torn from their threads, Raven and Murphy subconsciously moved to each other, needing the human contact to feel a shred of safety. Raven wrapped her arms around Murphy’s waist, while he had one around her back and the other gently cupping the back of her head, which was pressed into his chest. 

“We never had to deal with this shit on Earth,” she muttered, the words muffled. 

“We did have to deal with Praimfaya though, that fucking sucked,” he replied, running his hand up and down her back reassuringly. “And then we had the curse of the red sun, and those nasty bugs, wow.”

She sniffled and gripped him tighter, but pulled her head up to look him in the face. “You know what I really hate most though? I hate my leg brace. It really fucks with me when I have to run, or be fast, because I just can’t do it as fast as I want to or as fast as I need to. I hate being scared that I’m going to have to run from some crazy psychos in Sanctum after a cleanse happens and I won’t be able to get to safety.”

Murphy opened his mouth to apologize, but Raven poked him in the side to stop him. “I know, you’ve already apologized several times for shooting me. I don’t blame you for that, anymore. I do blame you for some of my recklessness before Praimfaya though,” she admitted. 

His brows knitted together in confusion. “I don’t know what you mean by recklessness. All I remember was you were being pretty badass trying to get a fucking hundred year old rocket ship to get us to the fucking Ring to survive Praimfaya,  _ and _ you had brain damage from ALIE trying to kill you at the same time. That’s not recklessness; that’s survival.”

She smiled and looked at him. “Thanks, Murphy.” 

He smiled back at her, flinching when the wind shook the whole building and got the screws screeching in their threads again. “God this fucking sucks.”

Raven knocked her shoulder into his. “At least we’ve got each other, right?”

“Right,” he answered. 

They broke apart from their tight grip on each other, having been comforted enough for the moment. Murphy rolled onto his back, his hands behind his head. Raven stayed where she was, on her side, thinking about the engineering of the outpost to be able to withstand such winds.  Suddenly, Murphy sat up and got off the bed, going over to his pack. Raven sat up too, curious. He dug into one of his side compartments and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. Raven scooted to the edge of the bed, her feet touching the floor. 

“What do you say we break into these,” he said, wiggling the thing in his hand, “to celebrate finding some pretty great shelter in this crazy storm.”

He unwrapped the cloth to reveal not two, but eight whole cookies from Madi’s birthday party the previous week. Raven’s eyes went wide. 

“How in the hell did you manage to nick eight cookies from the table without anyone seeing you?” she asked, unashamedly holding a hand out. 

Murphy placed a cookie into her hand. “I’m hurt, Reyes, that you forget my upbringing and devious ways back on Earth for so many years. It just takes a little practice,” he finishes, biting into his own cookie. 

They ate their cookies in silence, enjoying the flavor and sweetness of the sugar compared to the relative blandness and high salt levels their rations had. Murphy broke a third cookie in half, handing the larger half to Raven. He held his half up, as if to toast. 

“To each of us, for not killing each other yet, but also to you specifically, Raven Reyes, for finding this place in the middle of a fucking storm. Cheers,” he said, reaching to clink his cookie half with Raven’s. 

“Cheers,” she laughed, obliging him with the cookie clink before downing her half in one bite. 

Once the rest of the cookies were safely stowed away again and not in danger of being crumbled during transit, they agreed it was probably good to try and get some sleep, even with the wind still raging outside and rain starting to patter on the roof. 

Two more days passed in the outpost under the noisy sounds of the storm. Murphy discovered after a solid hour of banging around and twisting the knobs that the shower in the little bathroom did work, even if the water came out a bit rusty and gunky from disused pipes for the first thirty minutes it ran. Raven tried to close her ears to the noises he made when he finally felt safe enough to take a shower, but also didn’t really mind it at all. 

Those two days brought them closer together than they ever thought they would get, even after living on the Ring for six years with only five other people to socialize with. They talked about everyone from their pasts: Finn, Wick, Bellamy, Emori, and Shaw, the two most raw relationships for them. Even the best of relationships don’t always last, and sometimes it’s just more work to try and put it back together than it was to maintain it in the first place. 

On the morning of their third day in the abandoned outpost building, Raven checked her handheld monitor and saw the storm’s tail edge was finally passing over them. Putting everything away and getting out a waterproof jacket, she mimicked to Murphy to get his shit together so they could leave. 

As Raven waited for him by the door, she was tapping the foot on her good leg, looking once again at her monitor just to check the storm’s path hadn’t diverted since she last checked it thirty minutes ago. Murphy strode into the front room, firmly closing the other door behind him. He stopped right in front of Raven, a little bit too close for her comfort, but she waited to see what he was going to do. 

She didn’t have to wait long, because he leaned in and kissed her, only holding it for a few seconds, before pulling away. Raven blinked a couple of times, registering what he’d just done, her lips parted. 

“What was that for?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “It felt right, somehow.”

Raven smiled and bowed her head for a second. Exhaling, she raised her head again and looked straight at Murphy. “Kiss me again.” 

Murphy smiled, obliging. His hand found its way to the side of her neck, and she wrapped an arm around his waist. 

They broke the kiss but stayed close, their noses almost brushing. 

“I suppose being stuck with you in the middle of an insane storm wasn’t so bad after all,” Raven said quietly, unable to hide the smile creeping across her face. 

“Guess not,” Murphy replied, grinning. 

Raven leaned in for one more quick kiss before stepping out of his embrace. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of ground we need to cover today if we want to reach Sanctum’s further outpost by sundown tomorrow night.”

“After you, leading lady,” he said, bowing ridiculously low. 

They both laughed and took one last look around the abandoned outpost that had been their literal lifesaver the past few days before stepping out into the cloudy morning and locking it up behind them. If there was anyone watching them, they probably would have noticed clasped hands, but no one was around, and that was okay with them. 


End file.
